Keith Jackson: Why Celtic and Rangers' chief executives have to get it right in the January transfer window

KEITH looks forward to a January transfer window that will again show the stark contrast in fortunes between Celtic and Rangers and explains why it's time for the clubs' chief executives to step up to the plate.

ONE of them has £6million burning a hole in his trouser pocket. The other has a fuse burning on a £6m wage bill that might be about to explode in his face unless he handles it with the greatest of care.

The problems confronting Peter Lawwell and Graham Wallace this January may be polar opposites but the men in charge of the tills at Celtic Park and Ibrox find themselves in similar situations nonetheless.

In fact, one wrong move from either of these high-powered chief executives in the next few days or weeks could have disastrous consequences for their respective relationships with their own supporters.

Let’s start with Lawwell, who on the face of it at least faces the less stressful of the two tasks and yet who still finds himself in a hugely unenviable position.

Lawwell can’t pick up the paper these days without reading another carefully-worded warning from his manager about the need for Celtic to spend and spend big before the transfer market shuts up shop in little more than three weeks’ time.

Boss Neil Lennon even let slip yesterday the club’s sugar daddy Dermot Desmond has given his own personal blessing to the idea of some sort of multi-million pound super signing being added to the squad – an endorsement that will only add to the pressure on Lawwell’s shoulders to deliver this marquee deal.

Trouble is Lawwell tried hard to spend some of Celtic’s successive Champions League jackpots in the summer but for a whole range of reasons found it damn near impossible to part with serious sums of cash.

The more expensive the target the less likely he is to dream about away days in Dingwall and Dundee. The more he needs to be remunerated for his trouble. The deeper Lawwell’s dilemma becomes.

As a result he was accused of being unnecessarily miserly with the club’s vast riches and this tight-fisted mantle is one he would do well to shed before it seriously damages his status with the fans.

The truth is having successfully adopted a policy of speculating to accumulate in the transfer market ?– multiplying many millions by buying low and selling high – Lawwell has no great wish to stockpile money in Celtic’s account.

In fact hoarding it is counter productive to the Celtic model.

Lawwell believes the club will get a far better return on its cash by spending it on securing the next Gary Hooper or Victor Wanyama than by leaving it to gather dust and low interest in some cobwebbed bank vault.

The huge profits turned on these two players in the summer prove this is a formula that when it works, works spectacularly well.

However, for every Hooper there’s been a Morten Rasmussen, a Lassad Nouioui or even a Mo Bangura. In fact, where strikers in particular are concerned, there have been many more misses that hits.

When Lawwell got the chequebook out at the start of this campaign he came back with “a two for the price of one deal” in Teemu Pukki and Amido Balde.

So far Lennon has consistently told Balde to BOGOF while just about persevering with Pukki although his patience snapped again in Paisley yesterday where the Finn was left to watch the routing of St Mirren from the bench.

All of which suggests Lawwell’s signing policy needs to be revisited when shopping for goalscorers.

A higher risk approach will be needed this month with bigger fees and wages on offer as a lure. Lawwell can hardly afford to get this one wrong which means he can’t afford to buy cheap again in the hope of landing another long shot.

Lennon – and more importantly Desmond – is demanding Lawwell comes up with a genuine finished article rather than just another work in progress.

Whether it’s £5million for Alfred Finnbogason or £6million for Steven Fletcher, Lawwell will have to come up with something big enough to get Lennon’s approval and re-engage a support that, without Rangers around, is becoming bored and blase about domestic dominance.

These fans want their money’s worth too and it’s Lawwell who will bear the brunt of their dissatisfaction should they feel short-changed again this winter.

And to think he’s the guy in the relatively good position. Now on the other hand we come to Wallace ?who might already be wondering what on earth possessed him to take on that job at the top of the old marble staircase, manning the barricades outside the Rangers boardroom.

Because if an old campaigner such as Lawwell had a credibility problem with his own club’s fans, then Wallace may already be on a hiding to nothing on the other side of this divided city.

And that’s even before he attempts to convince his manager Ally McCoist of the need to slash the first-team wage bill.

Wallace is right about one thing, the scatter-cash culture inside Ibrox cannot be sustained. Of course we can’t forget this club has somehow managed to blow last December’s £22m IPO pretty much in its entirety.

And now McCoist is bracing himself for bad news from Wallace whose job, primarily, is not to win popularity contests but to keep the club from tipping into insolvency for a second time in two years.

Yet, even though they operate at the opposite ends of the financial spectrum, Wallace and Lawwell face precisely the same problem.

Because if Wallace forces McCoist to lessen quality he too might end up driving away his own customers. Rangers fans are angry enough at those leading their club right now to roll over and accept the sales of their best players.

Will they really be prepared to blindly stump up for 40,000 season tickets at vastly-inflated prices to watch an even inferior Rangers side from the one they are only just beginning to get their heads around?

McCoist too will react badly if he is asked to take on the Championship next season with a squad that might not be capable of winning it and returning to the top flight at the first attempt.

In fact if Wallace pushes too hard he might run the risk of making McCoist rethink his old mantra about not doing walking away.

And if McCoist was to go then where next for Wallace or for this Rangers board that is kidding itself if it believes the heat is off now it has survived its first agm?

There is no doubt the appointment of Wallace helped the current regime stave off a shareholders coup.

But now the new CEO must be judged by his actions. So far his refusal to demand the head of finance director Brian Stockbridge remains something of a mystery.

The longer Stockbridge remains the more Wallace’s judgment will be questioned by the masses.

Should he compound that by putting the squeeze on McCoist then Wallace might soon be wishing he was as a popular as his counterpart at Parkhead.